Onboarding Surveys and Onboarding Reviews Overview

Onboarding Performance Reviews and Surveys can measure the value an employee brings to their position, how efficient the recruiting process is, and where problems in hiring decisions are coming from. In this article, we cover the onboarding performance and survey options available. To learn more about ClearCompany and Employee Surveys, check out our ClearCompany Blog: How ClearCompany Uses Employee Surveys to Measure Talent Success.

In this article:
Difference Between Onboarding Reviews and Pre-Built Onboarding Surveys
Onboarding Surveys
Additional Resources

Difference Between Onboarding Reviews and Pre-Built Onboarding Surveys

Onboarding Reviews and Pre-Built Onboarding Surveys are both used to gather feedback from new hires. The biggest difference between the two is that Onboarding Reviews can be customized with open-ended questions that fit your needs, while the Pre-Built Onboarding Surveys are questions we designed to save you time in your process.
If you would like to learn more about the differences between reviews and surveys in general see the following information.

Nature of Feedback

• Reviews: Reviews are typically subjective opinions or assessments provided by individuals based on their personal experiences, observations, or impressions. They are often used to evaluate products, services, businesses, or experiences.
• Surveys: Surveys, on the other hand, are structured questionnaires designed to gather specific information or data from a targeted group of respondents. Surveys can be used for various purposes, including market research, academic studies, customer satisfaction assessments, and more.

Format and Structure

• Reviews: Reviews are typically free-form and allow individuals to express their thoughts in their own words. They might be written as prose, and the length and level of detail can vary significantly.
• Surveys: Surveys are standardized with well-defined questions and response options. They can use different question formats, such as multiple-choice, Likert scales, open-ended questions, etc. The structure is designed to collect data in a consistent and systematic manner.

Purpose

• Reviews: Reviews are often used by consumers to share their experiences with others and help inform potential buyers or users. Businesses and organizations also use reviews to assess customer satisfaction and make improvements to their products or services.
• Surveys: Surveys are primarily used to collect specific data or opinions to gain insights, identify patterns, and make data-driven decisions. They are commonly employed in market research, social sciences, customer feedback analysis, employee engagement assessments, and more.

Sampling and Generalization

• Reviews: Reviews are usually shared voluntarily by individuals who have personal experiences with the subject matter (e.g., customers, and users). They represent the views of a self-selected group and may not be statistically representative of the entire population.
• Surveys: Surveys are carefully designed to ensure the sample is representative of the target population. Researchers use various sampling techniques to generalize the findings from the survey to a larger group with a certain level of confidence.

Onboarding Reviews Options

Quality of Hire Review

Get manager feedback on new hire performance at your company. To learn more about Quality of Hire Reviews, check out the ClearCompany blog: Top 10 Metrics Driving Quality of Hire & Quality of Hire: So Much More Than a Metric.

Purpose of Review

The purpose of a review is to evaluate the accuracy of hiring against the competencies of a role and to understand if improvements or adjustments are needed. This is more of a metric for you to keep your finger on the pulse of hiring and the corresponding impacts. What you want to evaluate on the Quality of Hire review is a comparison of your interview scores to the scores on performance reviews, which are scored on the same scale.

Benefit

If you have the tools to appropriately track interviewers, scorecards, and performance, you can begin to evaluate if specific interviewers are rating close to performance (rating the rater), if interview training is needed, or if there are specific competencies or company values that are lacking. Good tools to support QoH will allow you to pinpoint a cause and then show you where to make adjustments in competencies, questions you ask, how you onboard, train, and more.

Best Practices

You should use this Onboarding Review if you have enough hires/data to evaluate, and if you’re running an annual review process.

Quality of Onboarding Review:

Get new hire feedback on the onboarding experience at your company. New hires will be asked 6-8 questions about their onboarding process/experience. 

Purpose of Review

The purpose of this review is to evaluate the performance of the recruiters, the candidate experience they have provided, the ease of transition into your company, and to evaluate if the candidate experience is accurate to what was presented by recruiters.

Benefit

The goal of this process is to understand if your recruiting and onboarding process is helping with hiring, retention, and engagement or hurting it. This also provides specific feedback from candidates on areas for improvement and information that they may have felt uncomfortable sharing during the recruitment process. It gives feedback to recruiters on how to make potential adjustments on communication, speed, transparency, and how these combined factors made candidates feel about the prospect of joining your company. Most importantly (in our opinion) you learn if candidates feel what was presented to them is a true reflection if the description of their role and the company matches the reality because this is one of the most common reasons why people leave companies.

Best Practice

Ideally, this review would be sent with enough time for an employee to have a clear picture of the organization, culture, and exhibited values to make an informed assessment, while not being too far off from their start date that the experience is not fresh in their mind. At ClearCompany we do it 90 days after the new employee starts for those two reasons.

Onboarding Surveys:

Surveys are also valuable for understanding your process and how it can be improved. Below are some of the ClearCompany Survey Templates that we offer that can be copied and edited. To Navigate and edit these templates, you can go to Tools> Setup> Templates (Under Performance Setup).

Onboarding Survey Options

Onboarding Survey for New Hires

The Onboarding Survey for New Hires should be used shortly after the completion of the onboarding and training process for new employees. The Onboarding Survey for New Hires is a valuable tool for organizations to assess their onboarding process's effectiveness and make data-driven improvements to ensure that new employees feel supported, engaged, and equipped to contribute to the organization's success.

New Hire Feedback Survey 2021

The New Hire Feedback Survey is a valuable tool for organizations to assess the effectiveness of their onboarding process, understand the experiences of new employees, and identify areas for improvement. By using this survey within the specified timeframe, organizations can gain valuable insights and ensure that new hires have a positive and successful start in their new roles. Consider the use of this survey between 21 and 45 days of an employee’s hire date, but never greater than 90 days.

New Hire Experience - First Week

Periodically employers need to ensure the newly hired were greeted warmly, fostered relationships, and were given the guidance needed so that they felt like taking this new job was a great decision. New Hire Experience- First Week survey should be used shortly after the completion of the first week of a new hire's employment. This survey is designed to gather feedback from new employees about their initial experiences with the organization, including how they were welcomed, how relationships were fostered, and whether they received the guidance they needed during their first week on the job.

New Hire Experience - First 90 Days

When considering your new talent and their entry into their job within your culture, it is essential to understand where the company excels and has opportunities to best acclimate new hires beyond the initial orientation day or week. Speak with employees to better understand their perspectives and explore possible modifications to the onboarding experience. The New Hire Experience - First 90 Days survey should be used within the first 90 days of a new hire's employment. This survey is designed to gather feedback from new employees about their experiences during the initial three months on the job, beyond the initial orientation period.

Additional Resources

How to Onboard Candidates
How to setup Onboarding